The era of India’s culture wars

KANTI BAJPAIKANTI BAJPAI|
Feb 2, 2013, 12.00 AM IST

We are in the midst of culture wars yet again. This is not to suggest that our culture wars are intermittent. They are not. They are being fought everyday, everywhere. The controversies that have boiled up around Kamal Haasan, Shah Rukh Khan, Ashis Nandy and Salman Rushdie are a reminder of the million cultural mutinies in progress. Why is the Indian culturescape so tumultuous?

At no time in India's post-1947 history has the culturescape been serene and quiescent. However, the past two decades, by any reckoning, have been the most explosive, with the destruction of the Babri masjid in 1992 and the pogrom in Gujarat 2002 as the darkest moments. There are many smaller culture wars that punctuate this period - the exiling of painter M F Husain, the protests against James Laine's book on Shivaji (ending with the vandalising of the famous Bhandarkar Institute), the attack on young women in Bangalore pubs, the uproar over cartoons in school textbooks, the 'fatwas' by Hindu activists against Valentine's Day celebrations, the pronouncements of the khap panchayats, and on and on.

What accounts for this upsurge? The first cause is the increasing glare and lure of publicity. The intrusion of the media into cultural venues and events, such as literary festivals and art shows, has reduced the distance between artists and the public in an unprecedented way, as Amitav Ghosh has pointed out with respect to literary festivals. The rise of cultural entrepreneurs and impresarios, the desire of artists for greater contact with the public, the public's desire to know artists more personally, all these have caused the insulation of art from politics to wear thin.

The second cause of the upsurge is the sense of impunity that has grown in India over the years. Those who want to intimidate and coerce can do so without fear of punishment by an increasingly timorous state which is unable to protect individuals from non-state actors - another point that Ghosh has underlined. The weak state is on display every day, and there are no signs that it will get stronger.

Add to this, thirdly, the nature of politics in an era of coalitions. Every party, in this situation, looks for the slightest advantage. Culture wars can mobilise and sway millions of people: that is clear from the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign. The temptation to capture the votes of those millions is overwhelming. To solidify support along cultural or communitarian lines is the dream of most parties in India, and virtually all political and electoral calculations are done on a communitarian count.

A fourth cause is the Indian preoccupation with the past. More than most, we are bound up with the glories and hurts of the past, real and imagined. All the countries of South Asia specialise in "past-ism". The glories and hurts of the past are two sides of the same coin because the glorious gave way to the inglorious and therefore to the hurts: when we think about our glories we simultaneously think about our hurts.

At the same time, South Asians live in societies marked by the fear of small cultural differences, to use Arjun Appadurai's formulation. When cultural differences are regarded as small, we fear assimilation by others, and we cannot understand why others don't assimilate to us. After all, the cultural distance is not far to travel. Culture wars, therefore, are wars of the past and of the fear of small differences.

Which brings me to India's deep-rooted illiberalism. India is not a liberal society if by liberalism we understand a strong attachment to the rights and protections afforded the individual. There is no liberal-minded party in India - no party dare speak the word "liberalism". Instead, Indians are firmly attached to their communities and consider the rights of collectives to be above the rights of individuals. This is very much the case in Asia generally and in most parts of the world, but it is also true of India, though we fondly imagine that it is not.

What does this add up to? It adds up to more culture wars. Can we do anything? Prudent, sensible, patient acts of resistance and counter-protest, of civic and civil organisation, are probably our only hope.